


Yuuri!! Under the Hill

by Emily_Nicaoidh



Series: Yuuri!!! Under the Hill [1]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Fair Folk, Fairy Tales, Gen, Halloween, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, M/M, Magical Realism, Paladin!Yuuri, VictUuri, trickster archfey!viktor, viktuuri
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-01
Updated: 2017-11-01
Packaged: 2019-01-27 18:40:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12588164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emily_Nicaoidh/pseuds/Emily_Nicaoidh
Summary: On Halloween, Yuuri decides it's time to deal with the Fair Folk who keep attacking his village. He knows he might not come back from Under the Hill alive. He hasn't considered the possibility that he might come back from Under the Hill with a fiancé.





	Yuuri!! Under the Hill

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Trick or Treat](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/334076) by Lily_winterwood. 



> So...I saw a ficlet by Lily_interwood on tumblr this morning where the YOI fam were playing Dungeons and Dragons and Yuuri was a paladin and Viktor was a trickstery archfey and something just sort of exploded in my brain because OFC Viktor would be some kind of Dramatique(TM) archfey trickster nonsense semi-deity and Yuuri is absolutely a paladin, and then I wrote this weird magical realism thing.

"Yuuri, don't go!" 

 

"Do you want the raids to stop or not?" Yuuri asked, exasperated. Leo and Guang-hong shrugged. 

 

"We'll figure out some other way around it," Leo mumbled. 

 

"Do you really think this will work?" Guang-hong asked. 

 

"I think it's easiest to get into the Fair Folk's realm tonight and I think someone has to do something soon, or there aren't going to be any of us left," Yuuri said. "And seeing as how there are exactly two paladins left in the town guard, it makes sense that it should be one of us."

 

"Did you ask JJ to go?" Guan-hong wanted to know.

 

Yuuri rolled his eyes. "No, and it should be obvious why not. He's got a fiancée. He shouldn't risk it. Besides, he's got a louder voice than me anyway. keep him stationed at the town gate tonight. He can scare off anything that tries to get in."

 

Yuuri reckoned that it would more likely than not that he wouldn't make it back tonight. Nobody knew much about the fey that had been staging raids on their small town, but over the past year the raids had increased in both frequency and intensity. While in his grandparents' day it had been rare for anyone to see more than one raid in their lifetime, now it was a weekly event. Every Sunday night there was a raid, and while some weeks the villagers didn't lose anyone, each time there were crops destroyed, livestock vanished or inexcplicably turned into pottery before the villagers' disbelieving eyes, and fortifications damaged. They were lucky that the main town gates had held for so long. The fey didn't seem interested in them; at first they had attacked the obvious pickings, isolated cottages and farms just outside the town walls. But as those were destroyed and abandoned, their owners (if they survived) moving into the safety of the town, the fey had started to go after the turrets and the houses built into the town walls. 

 

Yuuri, as one of the town's two paladins and head of the guard, spent most of his time on the walls. He remembered the first time he had seen one of the Fair Folk. A newly minted paladin, his armor undented and his bots still new enough to pinch and blister his feet, he had been patrolling the town walls during the graveyard shift. After several hours he was struggling to stay awake...until a ghostly-white hand reached over the top of a crenellation directly in front of him. 

 

Yuuri had screamed like a bansidhe, then remembered what he was about and drawn his katana and severed the hand. When his blade cut through the last of the fey's arm it had shattered, and Yuuri remembered feeling more annoyed about the expense of replacing it than anything else. He remembered hearing a cry in a thin, high voice, but never the sound of a body hitting the ground. Later, when he asked some town elders about it, the two who had actually fought Fair Folk before swore that their bodies dissapeared into mist when they were injured. Where the mist went, no one seemed to have any idea.

 

That event made Yuuri the paladin with the most experience in combat against Fair Folk, and probably propelled his swift rise to captain of the town guard more than anything else.

 

That was why he was resolved to go Under the Hill tonight. It was his duty to pursue any way to stop the attacks until all possibilities had been exhausted or his body broken. 

 

Guang-hong and Leo still looked uncomfortable with the idea, but Yuuri was done arguing. His pockets were full of iron bits and his katana was cleaned, oiled and sharpened, sheathed in his belt where he could get to it easily. His armor was all in place; it was time to go.

 

"Yuuri! I've lit the watch-lamp over the gatehouse in honor of your mission!" Phichit sang, appearing in the doorway of the guardhouse. "So you can find your way back to us after you're done."

 

"Thanks Phichit," Yuuri said, offering his best friend a thin smile. They had talked about this already, long hours into the night all week leading up to this night. Phichit understood, Yuuri thought, why it should be him to go. He knew his best friend didn't like it, and was trying not to mourn him publicly in front of his face.

 

The four guards traipsed down the narrow staircase, and all too soon they were in front of the gate. 

 

"Well," Yuuri said, trying to inject some levity he didn't feel into his voice. "I'm off."

 

Phichit pulled the lever to raise the gate, and Yuuri stepped out into the failing light.

 

 

For awhile he followed the path out of town. It wound around the borders of what had once been farmers' parcels of land, before the Fair Folk attacks, and skirted the edge of a forest for half a mile before delving into the trees. There was nothing particularly haunted about this forest in their village's myths, but since the attacks began people had started to avoid it whenever possible. The visiblity was low, and as the traffic from humans decreased, underbrush grew more vigorously than it would have in the absence of townspeoples' trampling feet, and the forest took on an eerie aura.

 

Yuuri had spent plenty of time playing in the edges of the forest as a child, back when that wasn't unusual, and now he made for a ring of standing stones that he knew from playing hide-and-go-seek with Phichit and Guang-hong. The common wisdom was that the mound in the middle of the incomplete ring of standing stones was the doorway to the Fair Folk's realm. Yuuri didn't know if there was anything to it, but he figured it was a place to start.

 

Leaves crackled under his boots, the sound growing louder as the clutter of fallen leaves over the pathway grew denser farther and farther into the forest. Yuuri looked neither to the left nor the right of the path, eyes focused solely on the road ahead. Of all nights, tonight was the last night that he should let his anxiety get away from him.

 

Eventually the stones appeared in front of him. They weren't far off the path; just before them, the path veered abruptly to the left, circling halfway around the stones before continuing on in a straight line. It was as if someone had built the mound and ring of stones in the middle of the pathh, forcing the path to redirect its flow around the new construction. 

 

Because the stones didn't look old; or at least, not as old as they should have looked, if the path flowed around them. The path was at least six hundred years old, Yuuri knew, from village history. The stones showed little sign of wear, and barely any moss grew on them. It was as if they were visited often and cleaned, but Yuuri knew nobody in the village would do this. Not anymore.

 

When Yuuri arrived at the bend in the path, he stopped, transfixed. 

 

The mound was open.

 

He could make out the start of a dusty, coiled staircase, leading down into the darkness of god knew where. The Fair Folk's realm, probably.

 

"Oh, fuck," Yuuri muttered, feeling his anxiety level skyrocket. "I guess I'm doing this." He drew his sword and stepped inside the ring of stones.

 

The ground felt different from his very first cautious step off the path. It wasn't as sandy as the path had been; there was a weird springiness, as if under the blanket of leaves the ground was moss and not soil. There were leaves scattered on the first few steps, but once Yuuri had descended a full circling of the stairs they were clear.

 

Yuuri's throat went dry as the full force of what he was doing hit him: he was underground, outside of the town walls, inside a ring of stones, on Halloween.

 

He forced himself to keep moving. His journey thus far has been short, and the waning sunlight's meagre illumination had been enough, but underground was its own sort of dark. A damp, creeping darkness that made Yuuri question if he actually remembered what sunlight looked like, or if he had just imagined it. He pulled a candle from his pocket, careful not to dislodge any of the iron bits around it, and lit it with a flint truck against the edge of his katana. He was careful not to draw the sword fully; he didn't want to invite anything that wasn't already paying attention to him with that act of agression. Instead he slid the sword haflway out of the sheath, exposing just enough steel to strike a small flame, then letting the sword slide back quickly.

 

The candle gave scant illumination, but Yuuri figured it was better than nothing. 

 

The stairs continued, and for a while he tried to keep count of how many revolutions he was making, but Yuuri eventually gave up. Propelled forwards only by his own determination and the reassuring sound of his own footsteps, Yuuri continued down the stairs. 

 

He was walking in reassuring circles; going deeper into the mound with every revolution but never getting farther from the entrance. Yuuri comforted himself with this fact, thinking that if someone were to lower down a rope, he could be back at the surface in moments. He refused to consider the fact that nobody else had come into the forest with him, and that he hadn't told anyone where he planned to go after leaving the town walls. 

 

Realistically, it was unlikely he would ever be found.

 

Expecting another stair, Yuuri tripped and fell when his foot met a sandy floor. He landed on his side, candle still gripped in his left hand, high right going automatically to his katana.

 

When nothing leapt out of the deep shadows at him, Yuuri rose to his feet, dusted off his armor, and continued. In the darkness, he didn't see the thorn that had poked through the eyelet on his boot, scratching the finest line along his ankle, now red with his blood.

 

Yuuri was vaguely aware that he was in some kind of tunnel; the ceiling, when he lifted his candle above his head, he could see vaulted stonework. There were no engravings or carved figures on any of it to give him a clue as to how or when this place had been made, but it had the same musty, old-but-new feel that the broken ring of standing stones on the surface had.

 

He started counting paces again, figuring that at least he could keep track of the distance that he traveled from the stairwell. 

 

Four hundred paces in, Yuuri saw a dim glow in the distance. 

 

"This is what you came for," he told himself sternly. "What would Minako-sensei say if she saw you afraid to go on?" Yuuri suspected that his teacher would tell him to turn around and go home; maybe that was the anxiety talking. 

 

The candle slipped out of his grasp and rolled away, sputtering out and leaving Yuuri in the dark. He held his breath, counted to five and back slowly, then forced himself to continue on.

 

He thought that as he got closer to the light there would be noise, but there were no voices. Only the barest whisper of sound, nothing more than the gentlest breeze, preceeded Yuuri as he marched towards the glow ahead.

 

Sooner than he would have liked he was standing before an arched doorway, a curtain of ivy handing over the opening and softening the light that escaped from the chamber beyond. 

 

Yuuri took a deep breath, raised a gloved hand to touch the curtain, and pulled a handful of the ivy to the side so that he could pass through. 

 

He didn't notice the thin strand of ivy with tiny leaves that detached itself from the curtais and wound snugly around his wrist, over his glove.

 

Yuuri stepped into the chamber, right hand on his katana, left clenched in a fist, raised protectively in front of his face.

 

"Oh, come on, you're not really going to attack me after the hospitality I've showed you, are you," asked a mirthful, teasing voice, and Yuuri looked up, his breath freezing in his chest as he locked eyes with its owner. 

 

Moonlight-sliver hair. Spring-rain blue eyes. A crown ofivy twined around his brow. Delicate, mushroom-white skin and a robe woven of fine strands of ivy, and sprawled on top of a bone-white throne. _A fucking archfey_ , Yuuri thought. _I'm dead._

 

"Don't you have anything to say for yourself?" The archfey demanded, leaning forward to stare at Yuuri.

 

"Command your servants to stop attacking my village, or I won't go easy on you," Yuuri warned, somehow making the words more forceful than he felt. _A fucking archfey. Oh, fuck, I'm dead._

 

The archfey giggled. "I don't like the threats, and besides, your village is mine now," he said.

 

Yuuri hadn't thought it possible to feel more dread than he already did, but his heart crystalized and fell to his stomach. 

 

"What," he asked, choking the word out through bone-dry lips, "do you mean?"

 

"You have entered my realm of your own free inclination, given me something of yourself freely and accepted something of mine in return. We are betrothed," the archfey finished, somewhat smugly.

 

"I don't...I don't understand," Yuuri stammered. 

 

"You walked here by yourself, did you not?" The archfey...was he smiling at Yuuri?

 

Yuuri nodded, and the archfey's lips twitched upwards.

 

"You gave me your blood at the bottom of the staircase," the archfey continued, gesturing the Yuuri's left book. He pulled down the tongue and noticed the thin red scratch. 

 

Horror piling upon horror in his heart and his breath catching in his throat, Yuuri asked the last question. "And what did I accept of yours?"

 

"Look at your right glove," the archfey directed, and Yuuri glanced down to see a thin band of ivy circling his wrist above his glove.

 

Yuuri swallowed hard. _There has to be a way out of this_ , he thought frantically. 

 

"I assure you I did not intend to give my blood nor take anything of yours," Yuuri swore.

 

"That doesn't factor into this at all," the archfey sang, staring at Yuuri with glittering eyes that seemed suddenly hungry.

 

"Fine," Yuuri said. "What do I have to do to get your servants to stop attacking my village?"

 

"I already have what I want," the archfey said, looking Yuuri up and down. 

 

"Then I'm what?" Yuuri demanded. "A hostage? A prisoner here?"

 

"Viktor, who are you talking to?" A second archfey appeared fron behind the throne. This fey was draped in a purple robe woven from flowers dripping dew, and frowned when he noticed Yuuri. "A mortal? What, I'm not good enough for you?"

 

"We're not together," the archfey on the throne insisted, hissing at the newcomer. "Now back off. This mortal's mine."

 

"You can't keep it down here, it'll spoil if it doesn't get sunlight, you know that," the second fey pointed out. "You have to let it go."

 

"No," hissed the archfey on the throne, sitting up straighter and leaning forward to study Yuuri. "It came to me. It's pretty. It accepted my ivy. It's mine."

 

The flower-draped archfey looked Yuuri over curiously, apparently impervious to his hostile ruler. 

 

"Did you acept Viktor's ivy?" The flower-cowled archfey asked. 

 

"Not on purpose, but I do have it in my possession. I can't seem to remove it, actually," Yuuri said, tugging at the ring of ivy on his wrist. He traced the circumfrence of it with a gloved finger, but found neither seam nor knot. 

 

"See?" The throned archfey, apparently called Viktor, gestured to Yuuri as if this proved his point. "The mortal's mine."

 

"I give up," the purple-cloaked archfey sighed. "Just try not to break this one so quickly, alright?"

 

"I'm not going to break him," Viktor said, sounding hurt at the suggestion.

 

"Yeah, you say that now. You won't on purpose," the other archfey said. "Did you at least get a good bargain out of him?" He asked, turning to face Yuuri.

 

"We have to leave that village alone," Viktor grumbled.

 

"You'll stop the raids?" Yuuri asked, barely believing what he heard. "No more attacks, no more stealing, no livestock turned into weird stuff, no damaging the walls?"

 

"Yes, yes, all of that," Viktor hissed. 

 

Chris whistled. "That's pretty airtight," he said. "Well done, mortal."

 

"Thank you," Yuuri said. 

 

"My mortal's so crafty," Viktor crowed.

 

The other archfey rolled his eyes. "If your mortal's so crafty maybe he'll figure out a way to sneak away from you," he pointed out.

 

Yuuri forced his face into a mask of blankness. The flower-cloaked archfey had said exactly what he had been thinking. But Yuuri was pretty sure any attempt at escape was useless at this point. He didn't know what was behind the throne--more tunnels, likely, since that other archfey had appeared from somewhere, but he had no idea where they lead or if they ever went up to the surface. 

 

He turned and looked at the ivy-curtained entryway behind him, and as he did, the strands of ivy rearranged themselves, weaving into a net with a tight weft. 

 

There would be no leaving the way he came without a fight.

 

Viktor seemed unconcerned that Yuuri was so openly eyeing the exit, because he had slouched back against the throne again and was watching the other archfey lazily.

 

"Is that my cloak?" Viktor asked, a note of hurt creeping into his voice. 

 

"Yes, I only borrowed it because I was in a hurry because I heard from the wee folk that there was a mortal down here," the other archfey said, miffed. "I couldn't fine mine. I think someone ate it."

 

"Serves you right for making cloaks that are edible," Viktor said, and if Yuuri wasn't mistaken he caught a flicker of glee in the throned archfey's eyes.

 

"Cloak-thief."

 

"That's you."

 

"I know you are."

 

"What is happening?" Yuuri wondered, then clapped a hand over his face when he realized he had said that out loud.

 

Both archfey were staring at him now, apparently unused to having their bickering interrupted. Yuuri took a deep breath and decided to see how far he could press his advantage.

 

"I need a token of your good intentions to bring back to my village," Yuuri said. "So that they will believe that you won't attack them again."

 

The two archfey glowered at one another.

 

"Ha! You can't think of anything!" The flower-cloaked archfey realized, pointing a finger that ended in a sharpened nail at Viktor.

 

"Shut up, I have something," Viktor countered. "Mortal, I will accompany you back to your realm as a gesture of my goodwill!" 

 

Yuuri stared at the archfey, who was now straightening his ivy cloak on his shoulders and rising to his feet. 

 

"You are dismissed," Viktor said, turning to the other archfey. "I will be taking a leave of absence to spend time with my betrothed." 

 

The other archfey gaped at him as Viktor descended the throne and extended a delicate hand to Yuuri. "Lead the way back to your village," he commanded.

 

"Viktor, what are we supposed to do while you're gone?" The other archfey sounded irritated. "You know Yura's been itching to take over your throne," he warned.

 

"It's mine," Viktor said, as if that settled it. "I'll be back later. Bye!"

 

Not wanting to question his sudden turn of good fortune, Yuuri hurriedly accepted the archfey's hand, folding the thin, bone-cold fingers against his palm and leading the way towards the woven ivy covered doorway. The ivy melted away from them and paladin and archfey king passed through the archway on their way back to the mortal realm.

 

With the archfey beside him the path from the throne room to the starcase seemed shorter and easier. Yuuri refused to question it. He kept a firm grip on Viktor's hand as they neared the starcase, which was just wide enough for them to walk side by side.

 

He soon encountered another problem. 

 

As soon as their feet hit the first step the chattering began.

 

"What's your name? What does your house look like? How many people do you live with? Do you always have that sword with you? Do you always wear those weird clothes? Can I sleep in your bed? Are we going there now?"

 

The archfey was apparently an entless fount of questions and bubbling curiosity.

 

"I don't want to say my name underground," Yuuri said. "My house looks pretty normal and boring, just the same as the other houses in my village. I live by myself. I don't always have this sword when I'm not at work. My weird clothes are armor, which I wear at work. You can't sleep in my bed. We're going to my house now," Yuuri answered.

 

"I can't sleep in your bed?" The archfey latched on to that one anwer, and his voice sounded so shattered that Yuuri chanced a glance over at him. His eyes were filling with tears, and Yuuri hastily reconsidered.

 

"No! You can!"

 

"Yay!" The archfey sang. "My betrothed wants me to sleep in his bed!"

 

Unsure how to deal with this declaration, Yuuri focused on counting the stairs. He had no idea how far they had climbed while he answerd the archfey king's frankly bizzare line of questining, but he remembered losing count on his way down the stairs at around five hundered. 

 

The air began to grow sweeter, and Yuuri felt tension he didn't even realize he was still holding go out of his body when they set foot on the top of the staircase.

 

The archfey hesitated, one foot planted firmly on the second-highest stair. 

 

"What's wrong?" Yuuri asked. 

 

"I don't go out here," the archfey said, sounding uneasy.

 

"What?"

 

"Out of my realm. I don't go Above the hill."

 

"It's okay," Yuuri said, remembering his own reticence to go Under the hill. "Come on Viktor, you'll be fine."

 

It was the wrong thing to say.

 

"Who told you my name," the archfey hissed, and Yuuri, standing just over the border between realms, edged backwards a little, glad that both his feet were on the human side of the border.

 

"The other archfey," he said. "In your throne realm. Remember? He said your name a lot of times."

 

"Traitor," Viktor cursed. "He gave you my name."

 

"It's traditional for mortals to know the name of our betrothed," Yuuri said, thinking quickly. 

 

"Is it?" Viktor asked, voice heavy with suspicion.

 

"Yes," Yuuri said firmly.

 

"I don't know your name," Viktor realized. "You have to tell me. It's your tradition."

 

"Come over here and I'll tell you," Yuuri offered. He didn't like the idea of the archfey king knowing his name while still standing in his own realm where his powers were greatest.

 

"No. You tell me first," the archfey said, eyes narrowed in suspicion.

 

Yuuri sighed. "Fine. Yuuri. My name is Yuuri."

 

"Yuuri. Alright," the archfey nodded, muttering the name several times to himself as he stepped across the invisible divide and into the mortal realm. 

 

Yuuri reached out his hand again, and the archfey took it.

 

As they walked back to the village, Yuuri noticed several strange things about his companion. The fallen leaves, which crunched under Yuuri's boots, made no noise under the archfey's bare feet. He was no apparition, Yuuri knew -- his hand was beginning to grow warm in Yuuri's. But he seemed unaffected by the October chill and damp which was beginning  to seep through Yuuri's cloak and armor. The archfey wore only the cloak of ivy strands that he has worn in the throne room, and didn't appear to have need to much else. The ivy leaves making up his crown seemed impervious to wind, and the breeze that ruffled Yuuri's hair had no effect on the archfey's silvery hair or his crown. Both were utterly still.

 

Sooner than Yuuri thought possible, they were standing in front of the village gate, looking up at the lamp that Phichit had lit earlier that evening. Yuuri stepped forward and raised a fist to bang on the door. The archfey jumped a little at the sound that reverberated through the air, but kept his hand firmly in Yuuri's.

 

"Leo, it's Katsuki!" Guang-hong called out from behind the door. 

 

"I know, I see him," Leo replied, excitement and surprise plain in his voice.

 

"Yuuri, as much as I hate to be the one to say this, who is that with you?" Phichit stood at the top of the fortification, leaning down to call to Yuuri.

 

"Er...this is my fiancé," Yuuri said somewhat hesitantly. "He's shy." He nudged Viktor, who looked at him, alarmed. "Wave at them or something," Yuuri muttered. "Try to look not-dangerous."

 

The archfey smiled, revealing sharply pointed teeth.

 

"Uh...he looks like an archfey," Phichit pointed out. "I want to let you in, but I'm sort of afraid of that guy?"

 

"No attacking the village, right?" Yuuri turned to the archfey. "If I can promise him that, he will let us in."

 

"No attacking the village," Viktor repeated.

 

"I've um...negotiated a truce with the Fair Folk," Yuuri called to Phichit. "He's with me as an um. Gesture of goodwill. We'll all be safe if you let us in."

 

"Great!" Phichit chirped, and the doors creaked open. 

 

Viktor jumped again, then squeezed Yuuri's hand.

 

"You're ok," Yuuri said. "It's just the gears turning. Let's go in." If he held his breath as they walked through the town gates, Yuuri would never admit it. 

 

The spires of the town chapel and the familiar, slate grey slanting roofs looked like the best thing Yuuri had ever seen. After walking away from this knowing that he might never return, the sight of the solid, stone and wood houses seemed like nothing short of a miracle.

 

"Wow, Yuuri, where did you find this guy?" Phichit asked, having closed the gates behind Yuuri and Viktor and rushed down the stairs to meet them.

 

Viktor frowned. "I am the king under the hill," he said frostily, staring at Phichit. "I am not this guy."

 

"Oh, sorry, what's your name?" Phichit asked. 

 

Viktor glared at him.

 

"It's a polite question, for us," Yuuri said to Viktor, trying to clear the air. "He doesn't mean any harm by it."

 

"Those stories we were told about names are apparently true," Yuuri said, turning to Phichit. "I don't think that's the best thing to ask right away."

 

"Okay, Yuuri's friend!" Phichit said. "Welcome to Hasetsu!"

 

"We are going to Yuuri's house now and I am going to sleep in his bed," the archfey announced, staring at Phichit, who choked. 

 

"Yuuri, what?" Phichit looked bewildered.

 

"We're engaged. It's the bargain I made to get the Fair Folk to leave the village alone," Yuuri explained. "Can we talk about this tomorrow? I'm exhausted."

 

"I'm coming over as soon as I get off duty," Phichit promised. "Speaking of, I better get back to the gatehouse."

 

"Night," Yuuri said, tugging on Viktor's hand. "Come on, let's go home."

 

 

Yuuri's house was only a few blocks from the town gates, and soon the famliar brick and wood entryway was in sight.

 

"Here we are," Yuuri said, pulling a key from his pocket and turning the latch. 

 

Viktor eyed hims suspiciously as Yuuri pulled the door open. 

 

"Your bed is in here?" The archfey asked.

 

"Yeah, up on the second floor," Yuuri said. "I live with some other people but they're asleep right now. They don't know I went out to the forest tonight, so I don't want to wake them and have to explain, well, you to them," Yuuri said.

 

"I will be quiet."

 

"Good."

 

Viktor followed Yuuri into the house and up the short flight of stairs, then around a corner into a small room. Yuuri shut the door behind them, then picked up a lamp off a table and lit it, revealing a fireplace, bed, table, and chair.

 

"It's not the fanciest," Yuuri said. "But there's room in the bed for you, and if you're cold I can light a fire."

 

"I don't get cold," the archfey said. "I do get tired."

 

"Okay, bed it is then," Yuuri said. -Well, guess I can't avoid it any longer. I'll have to take my armor off, he thought, and becan unlacing his armor.

 

"What are you doing?" the archfey asked. 

 

"Oh, um, it's uncomfortable to sleep in these so I usually take them off," Yuuri said, then hastily added "you don't have to take yours off. I'm going to keep on my undershirt and shorts."

 

Viktor nodded and watched as Yuuri removed his armor, piece by piece, laying them out carefully on the table to be cleaned later. He shuffled out of his jacket delicately, avoiding disturbing the bits of iron that were in his pockets. _At this point seeing that might set him off, and I don't think I'll need them anyway_ , Yuuri thought. He folded the jacket and set it on the chair.

 

Viktor, apparently bored of watching Yuuri disrobe, shrugged out of his ivy robe and flopped onto the bed, pulling a heavy blanket over himself, then resumed watching Yuuri closely.

 

When Yuuri was down to a thin shirt and shorts, he peeled back the cover on the opposite side of the bed from Viktor and tried to muster some more confidence. 

 

"Mind if I join you?"

 

"I am already your guest," Viktor said, which Yuuri decided to take as a roundabout sort of inviation. He slipped under the covers and closed his eyes. 

 _Weirdest halloween ever_ , Yuuri thought, and then he was asleep.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! <3 Let me know what you think in the comments <3  
> and come find me on tumblr: apismel1fera.tumblr.com


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